Bitch is going to be at Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest this weekend, covering some fantastic female and queer-fronted bands playing on Auditorium Shores.
There’s a large amount of great electronic pop, from bigger indie acts like (Lykke Li, Blonde Redhead, YACHT) and some lesser-known but promising artists (MNDR, Grimes, Keep Shelley in Athens), in addition to some great rock (Lemuria, The Thermals, Thee Oh Sees), dreamy pop (Girls, tUnE-yArDs, Asobi Seksu) and a few cult favorites (Boris, Big Freedia). Here’s just a sampling of some of the acts this weekend you should check out, and for folks following along at home, here's hoping you find a new band to love and check out when they're near you! Track list after the jump.
The covers of Mr. Gnome’s discography convey something sinister and dark, with evil-looking rabbit figures in apocalyptic landscapes, and even their name conjures something mystical and unknown. But their music is neither dark, sinister, nor mystical. It is, however, complex and captivating, and Madness in Miniature (El Marko) their new album released last week, is worthy of deep and multiple listens, and one of the best releases I've heard this year.
Well, we have reached the end of this series. This has been such a rich topic for me that, of course, there are many things I'd hoped to cover but didn't. For this last post, I thought I'd briefly discuss a woman whose music about the loss—or absence—of god has resonated with me personally over the past couple of months as I've thought and written on this subject.
On her 2010 release, A Heart of My Own, Canadian singer-songwriter Basia Bulat ruminates on the loss of god. Here she is singing the popular track, "The Shore":
Well, Ladyween weekend is officially upon us! (And yes, we're still trying to make Ladyween happen around here. It'll catch on before you know it—trust us.) Here are some holiday jams to get you in the mood. Listen IF YOU DARE! (BEWARE: Scary track list after the jump!)
I have never understood why reporters so rarely ask Jenny Lewis about the rich religious critique that has pervaded her work since the earlier days of Rilo Kiley. There is just so much there. I think I will scream if I hear another reporter ask her what it's like to look hot in indie music, why Rilo Kiley really broke up, and whether or not her indie purist fans think the country album/major label/Jenny & Johnny project was a sellout.
Here's the band singing their 2004 single, "It's a Hit":
I have spent a lot of time thinking about the silliness of "True Love Waits"-style campaigns, but it never really occurred to me to think about how a child who has been raped might experience these shaming "abstinence-only" discourses. That is to say, this would be particularly cruel, painful, and potentially traumatic for such a child.
Potentially even worse than teen purity rallies, I think, are the "purity balls."
Consider the opening line of this local news video: "Would you pledge your virginity to your father?"
Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve the amount of ridiculously awesome music here in Portland, Oregon. Earlier this year we had the Females of Color Festival, a celebration of anyone that plays music and identifies as a female of color (the lineup included, um, pretty much every great band in this town), and this last weekend saw the passing of Shred Fest, a festival for face-melters who identify as women.
Last week, a friend sent me a link to the blog Stuff Christian Culture Likes. Not to be confused with the evangelical site, Stuff Christians Like, Stuff Christian Culture Likes zeroes in on the strangeness of US evangelicalism with a more jaded perspective.
The blog raises an issue that I've been thinking about a lot recently—that is, that evangelicalism has its own weird language, with its smattering of words that take on a completely different meaning in evangelical culture. It even coins words and phrases of its own. In another post, I outlined some of the terms related to Christian patriarchy that I think you should know. Here, I offer another list of problematic entries (in no particular order), each paired with a corresponding Christian Contemporary Music track that you can find on YouTube.
Yesterday, Republican Presidential hopeful Herman Cain clashed with Piers Morgan about whether or not people are born gay. Here's the video:
The important thing to know is that Cain sets out saying that "homosexuality is a sin" because of his "Biblical beliefs," but Morgan quickly steers the conversation into "born this way" territory, outraged that Cain won't concede his point. Cain's response: "What does science show? You show me evidence other than opinion, and you might cause me to reconsider that... Where's the evidence?"
So, Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle, songwriter and poet laureate of the existentially anguished, identifiesas a feminist and has even said that his feminist ideals conflict with his Catholic faith. When I first heard this, I was quite surprised. Why? Well, listen to one reason, a song called "Bad Priestess" (lyrics).
The covers of Mr. Gnome’s discography convey something sinister and dark, with evil-looking rabbit figures in apocalyptic landscapes, and even their name conjures something mystical and unknown. But their music is neither dark, sinister, nor mystical. It is, however, complex and captivating, and 
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